The Man on the Balcony

yards from the road. Farther away, where the road forked, a uniformed policeman was on guard to keep inquisitive people away.

As he went down the slope Kollberg caught up with him. They could hear the policemen down there talking, but they fell silent as Beck and Kollberg approached. The men saluted and stepped aside. Martin Beck heard Kollberg panting.

The girl was lying on her back in the grass with both arms bent over her head. The left leg was bent and the knee drawn up so high to the side that the thigh lay at right angles to the body. The right leg lay stretched out obliquely from the trunk. Her face was turned upwards, with half-closed eyes and open mouth. Blood had trickled down from the nostrils. A skipping rope of yellow transparent plastic was wound tightly around her neck in several coils. She was wearing a yellow sleeveless cotton dress buttoned right down the front. The three bottom buttons had been torn off. She had no pants. On her feet were white socks and red sandals. She looked about ten years old. She was dead.

Martin Beck saw all this during the few seconds he was able to keep his eyes on her. Then he turned and looked towards the road. Two of the men from the technical division were running down the slope. They were dressed in gray-blue coveralls and one of them was carrying a large gray metal box. The second man had a coil of rope in one hand and a black bag in the other. As they got nearer the man with the rope called:

'That bastard who has left his car in the middle of the road will have to move it so that we can drive up.'

Then, glancing at the dead girl, he ran down to the road fork and began cordoning off the area with the rope.

A radio policeman in a leather jacket was standing beside the road speaking, into a walkie-talkie while a plainclothes man stood beside him listening. Martin Beck recognized the plainclothes man. His name was Manning and he belonged to the protection squad in second district.

Manning caught sight of Martin Beck and Kollberg, said a few words to the radio policeman and then came up to them.

'It seems as if the whole area is cordoned off now,' he said. 'As far as possible.'

'How long since she was found?' Martin Beck asked.

Manning looked at his wrist watch.

'It's twenty-five minutes since the first car got here,' he said.

'And you've no description to go on?' Kollberg asked.

'No, unfortunately.'

'Who found her?' Martin Beck asked.

'A couple of small boys. They gave the alarm to a radio car that was driving along Ringvagen. She was still warm when they got here. Doesn't seem to be long since it happened.'

Martin Beck looked around him. The technical division car was driving down the slope, closely followed by the doctor's.

From the hollow where the dead child's body lay nothing could be seen of the allotment gardens that began behind a mound about fifty yards to the west. Above the treetops the upper stories of one of the apartment houses in Tantogatan were visible, but the railroad that divided the street from the park was hidden by the greenery.

'He couldn't have chosen a better spot in the whole of Stockholm,' Martin Beck said.

'A worse one, you mean,' Kollberg said.

He was right. Even if the man guilty of the little girl's death was still within the area, he had a pretty good chance of escaping. The park is the biggest in the inner part of the city. Next to Tanto Park itself there are allotment gardens and cottages, and below them, on the shore of Arstaviken, is a straggling line of small boatyards, storehouses, workshops, scrapyards and ramshackle wooden huts. Between Wollmar Yxkullsgatan, which cuts through the area from Ringvagen to the water, and Hornsgatan lies the Hogalid Institution for alcoholics, consisting of several large, irregularly placed buildings. Round about are several more storehouses and wooden sheds. Between the institution and the Zinkensdamm athletic field is yet another colony of allotment gardens. A viaduct over the railroad connects the south side of the park with Tantogatan, where five gigantic apartment houses have been built on the rocks nearest the water. Farther up, at the corner of Ringvagen, is the Tanto workingmen's hostel, consisting of a line of low, sprawling wooden huts.

Martin Beck sized up the situation as almost hopeless. He did not see how they could possibly catch the murderer here and now. For one thing, they didn't even have his description; for another, he was sure to have made a clear getaway by this time. Thirdly, the alcoholics* home and the working-men's hostel could supply them with so many suspicious individuals that it would take days to question them.

The next hour confirmed his doubts. When the doctor had finished his preliminary examination he could merely say that the girl had been strangled and probably raped, and that death had occurred quite recently. The dog van had arrived soon after Martin Beck and Kollberg, but the only scent the dogs picked up led straight out of the park towards Wollmar Yxkullsgatan. The plainclothes policemen in the protection squad were questioning possible witnesses, as yet without result. A number of people had been in the park and the allotment gardens, but no one had seen or heard anything that could be connected with the murder.

The time was ten minutes to five and on the sidewalk of Ringvagen a group of people stood staring inquisitively at the apparently aimless work of the police. Reporters and photographers had arrived in a stream; some of them had already returned to their editorial offices to supply readers with juicy descriptions of the second murder of a little girl in Stockholm within the space of three days, committed by a maniac who was still at large.

Martin Beck caught sight of Kollberg's round behind in the open door of a radio car that was parked on the gravel nearest Ringvagen. He broke away from a cluster of journalists and went up to Kollberg, who was leaning into the car and speaking on the radio. He waited until Kollberg had finished speaking and then pinched his behind. Kollberg backed out of the car and straightened up.

'Oh, it's you. I thought it was one of the dogs.'

'Do you know if anyone has told the girl's parents?' Martin Beck asked.

'Yes,' Kollberg replied. 'We're spared that.'

'I thought I'd go and talk to the boys who found her. They live over there in Tantogatan.'

'Okay,' Kollberg said. 'Ill stay here.'

'Fine. Be seeing you,' Martin Beck said.

The boys lived in one of the big bow-shaped apartment houses in Tantogatan and Martin Beck found them both at home. They were suffering from shock after their awful experience, but at the same time could not hide the fact that they found it all very exciting.

They told Martin Beck how they had stumbled on the girl while playing in the park. They had recognized her at once, as she lived in the same apartment house as they did. Earlier in the day they had seen her in the playground behind the house where they lived. She had been skipping together with two girls of her own age. As one of them was in the same class as the boys, they could tell Martin Beck that her name was Lena Oskarsson, that she was ten years old and lived next door.

The next apartment block looked exactly like the one the boys lived in. He took the swift automatic elevator to the seventh floor and rang the doorbell. After a while the door was opened and then shut again immediately. He had not seen anyone through the crack of the door. He rang the bell a second time. The door was opened at once and he now realized why he had not seen anyone the first time. The boy standing inside looked about three years old and his flaxen-colored head was about a yard below the level of Martin Beck's eyes.

The lad let go the door handle and said in a high-pitched, clear voice:

'Hi, good afternoon.'

Then he ran into the apartment and Martin Beck heard him call:

'Mommy! Mommy! Big man come.'

About half a minute passed before his mother came to the door. She looked anxiously and questioningly at Martin Beck and he hastened to show his identity disk.

'I'd like a word with your daughter if she's at home,' he said. 'Does she know what has happened?'

'To Annika? Yes, we heard just now from a neighbor. It's horrible. How can such a thing happen in broad daylight? But come in. I'll get Lena.'